End

With the End in Mind is one of the loveliest books I read near the end of the year.

For unknown reason the pattern of my reading follows an interesting flow: most of my recent ones are about the end of life, coinciding with the last few pages of the year calendar.

I just finished a heart-wrenching memoir of a young mother who died of colon cancer spreading everywhere in abdomen: The Unwinding of the Miracle.

It may seem odd that I set out to read those deathbed stories: a young drummer losing not just hair but her finger dexterity from the grueling leukaemia treatment, a couple who kept hiding the knowledge of terminal ovarian cancer from each other with both of them thinking that "I was the only one that knew." Yet those stories of patients in the last months of their lives have taught us to live better, as well as die better. That last bit is an important lesson for all.

Cookies

Our children are living in the culture of playing digital games, which is so foreign to my generation. My daughter is a better video game player than me. Chances are your kids beat you in the sandbox game of "Minecraft" too.

Oh, how I would look like a nerd fumbling with the controller when my daughter watches my game going awry. If only I could negotiate a truce. But playing video games with children is a necessary part of parenting, too, so that's what I do now and then.

And wait, there's more. I'm not saying that I kept disappointing my daughter in all sorts of digital game. It depends what type of game  you're talking about. Whenever my daughter is playing a word scramble puzzle game "Word Cookies," she loves to grab me and play together. The good news is that, these days, Jasmine still gets fascinated by this puzzle game. Which doesn't sound so difficult for a nerd daddy. In fact, both of us love testing our brains swiping the alphabet cookies on a baking pan to form as many words as we can.

I guess I have to stop here, and go to write a letter of gratitude to the designer of "Word Cookies."

Habits

There are two unspoken rules in my office. Both are weird, I know.

The first rule is I never have an al desko lunch.

W-w-w-w-what? You heard me. Actually, scarfing down quick lunch at our desk saves time, I have to admit. But, alas, eating is a social ritual. If time is running short, I'd rather skip lunch. If time is running just a bit tight, I prefer a run to the canteen and meet up my colleagues. It's also a good way to get ourselves out of the hamster wheel of nonstop work, according to Henry Steward, founder and "chief happiness officer" of the workplace consultancy.

The second rule: there is no landline phone in my office.

Once I'm clear on what the purpose of a telephone is, and how often the landline phone can serve my purpose, I told my secretary matter-of-factly not to install telephone for my office. No one seems more caught off guard by this rule than my secretary. She has never heard of a boss without office desktop phone. If you think that desktop phone can demarcate clearly when I'm reachable (translation: when I am sitting in my office), think twice. With the hectic bustle of clinic sessions and ward rounds, of various appointments and meetings, the chance for my butt to touch my office chair is as rare as finding an empty bed in my hospital.

Which is why, in the end, I decided to rely on and stick to a mobile phone - and forget the landline phone - lest I be fired for being never reachable.

Change

My daughter is starting middle school next year. Chances are, middle school is all about change - new school, new teachers, new friends.

Come to think of it, change isn't happening overnight. Day by day, instead.

But we know. We know the change, say, when my daughter's favorite songs are no longer "Let it Go." Before I can remember the songs of Taylor Swift, her hit songs are now those of Billie Eilish.

Another obvious change I can notice is the genre of library books I borrow for her. My daughter is moving to read teen's literature like Fish in a Tree. Which is why I am choosing less and less picture books. These changes take place in steps, and can always be to-and-fro. Oh. I still pick a bite-size picture book now and then, as long as it is funny and illuminating. The best recent example is Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Friendshape.

A phenomenal capture of friendship with simple words and illustration. The book fits everyone's definition of beautiful. It's so lovely to be read to and it's heaven to be read to by your own child.

Simple

Jogging along the Yangtze River, the Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre Stadium glinting in the sun, is what I believe to be one of the most uplifting experiences.

When I arrived at the conference venue, I mulled over the trail marked on the map and wanted to congratulate myself for bringing my sneakers. With that in mind, I checked the conference schedule and planned. I’d half expected myself to run wherever I travel, but alas, that didn’t happen this time. My lectures were spread on two different days and the conference started pretty early in the morning. I could not afford time to run.

Don’t get me wrong - I wished to run and truly believe in the flickers of the pure joy that runners get. I simply decided to stick to the conference as how rules are made. Much of it had to do with my original purpose of coming to Nanjing.

Being flexible remains the best recipe for joy. I told myself I would be happy as long as there’s a chance to sneak out for a quick walk during break.

That simple.

Nanjing

There’s a famous quote that says, “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

I definitely had a light-bulb moment when I read that quote, because I recently visited Nanjing. That I traveled to China was something of a happenstance, that I arrived there one day ahead of the conference, also a happenstance. It was only when I landed that I realized the congress had not officially started. What I do know for sure is that the day coincides with my daughter’s birthday. I don’t know if my words could ever make up for my mistakenly early flight. But I would be remiss if I did not try.

Much in the same way a student skips class, I found myself a good excuse to spend time hiking on the day of pre-congress session more for the youth nephrologists.

As I traipsed the mountain routes in Nanjing, I learned to appreciate an off-season travel opportunity. Part of the sense of feeling whole and complete came from the joy of exploring a new place, besides attending and giving lectures in a conference.

Font

Kids, by nature, resemble their parents.

"See, she gets my nose."

"But hey, her eyes look more like mine."

So yes, we parents are somewhat keen to see the similarities with the offspring. And I bet every dad and mum are just going to compete for their babies to look more like them. I sure do.

And yet it also dawned on me that we should not pray for a child being an exact clone of ourselves. Too much and I'd worry about her inheriting bad trait from me, too little and I'd feel distant.

I suppose the magic behind the game of fatherhood is watching his daughter grow up - a new character but with occasional dash of father's style. Even if we're not two peas in a pod, every so often we find ourselves sharing the same blood. We came close to bursting into laughter, say, when we recently realized that the favorite typeface for both of us is Century Gothic font.

Scoreboard

Not long ago, our hospital outpatient clinic has been equipped with electronic queue management system. That means we don’t have to use a microphone to call patients at the waiting hall; the automated audio system will do.

It didn’t take long for me to find out the perks of this tracking system. Patient tracking can become its own form of reward. And for good reason.

Let me explain. If you haven’t yet heard about the Canadian stockbroker named Trent Dyrsmid, go read James Clear’s hands-on book Atomic Habits. Dyrsmid began each morning with two jars on his desk. One was filled with 120 paper clips. Soon after making a sales call, he would move one paper clip from the full jar to the empty jar. One by one. Day by day. He kept dialing until he’d moved them all to the second jar. Thanks to the visual cues of moving paper clips, Dyrsmid made brisk progress and good fortune.

In fact, we had been also relying on the paper clip counts to keep a tally of patients we had seen at the end of each clinic session. It works, I know. On the other hand, I'd much prefer an automated system with the real-time computer screen display of the names of patients seen. I fall in love with chasing my scores with rapt attention. The thing is, it is way more satisfying to watch your results grow - the size of your investment portfolio, the number of pages you have read, the number of patients attended - and if it feels good, then you're more likely to endure. Visual proof is immediately gratifying. Gratification of watching the computer screen reminds me of the scoreboard for sportsmen in a stadium. With time, I stick with the habit of recording or tracking the "score" during and after each clinic session. Even if you aren't the type of person who enjoys recording your data, you'll find the measurements insightful. This is why I feel satisfying to track my progress.

The more rewarding it feels to track our progress, in other words, the more our brains’ reward system will spur us toward getting things done.

What if everyone turns out to be too obsessed with the numbers in our data-driven world? In Atomic Habits, James Clear reminds us the measurement is not the only thing that matters. In other words, if we focus solely on that number, our motivation will sag. High scores or not, no measurable data will stay interesting forever. At some point, we are advised to shift our focus to something different and not that measurable. The smiling faces of doctor colleagues who can finish clinic early after my extra hand, for example, are ephemeral but much more meaningful. Ditto for a grateful patient whose name might not appear on my scoreboard.

Burns

There is more in a vigil around a deathbed than prayer. Tears are shed when cancer cells are scattered around a patient's abdominal cavity like pearls from a broken string. Conversations are intermingled with beeping alarm from the infusion pump for pain medication. Then there are muttered mumbles from neighboring beds.

I have been aware of how heart-wrenching it can be when I reserved a book written by a palliative care doctor Kathryn Mannix: With the End in Mind.

By the time I picked up the book about dying this week, it has become clear to me that conversation about death isn't too challenging. After all, most diseases follow a predictable pattern of trajectory towards the very end of life. But this is not the case for calamities from human clashes.

Now that Hong Kong is sick, stories of dying patients under palliative care specialists are much easier to swallow. The day after our alma mater campus turned into a smoking battlefield with teargas fired, I had experienced much more difficulty in reading news story than Kathryn's chronicle of a woman dying from widespread bowel cancer.

If I had the choice, I'd rather read Mannix's lessons on how to live and die well, instead of the news feed about how our campus burns.

Curiosity

Smartphones are not allowed for candidates in our professional examination. The same rule applies for the examiners, who are supposed to switch off or silence the device, in case of being distracted like Pavlov's dog to that ping! in the middle of examination.

It was already three thirty in the afternoon; I had examined more than ten candidates sitting for the membership examination, and my energy - that of the sweaty candidates, too - was nearly burned out, when I took a sheepish glance at my smartphone. There was an interesting email from a medical student. A curious student asked me why I had cast doubt on giving morphine to patient suffering from heart attack.

"Largely an old wives' tale in the era of dogmatic medicine," I'd previously taught him. Conforming doctors have used the word classical teaching with romantic promiscuity. We have been handed a long list of we-must-believe dogmas, to be strictly followed without asking why. Watch what happens when we exercise our curiosity, investigate and seek after new evidence, and think again. The myth of morphine in myocardial infarction, for example, will be debunked.

 If we are to follow the time-honoured advice, it will be that of Sir William Osler who cautioned that "the greatest enemy to the scientific practice of medicine is the practice of the routine."

Hero

It is not the sort of thing most people would lose sleep over. But for the last few months, many Hong Kong people - including me - have been stunned by the city's chaos amid tear gas, bullets, pepper spray and batons.

Seeking a break with the violence, I've told myself stop reading news before bedtime. They're too disheartening, too harsh, too mean, too terrifying. Gazing at electronic devices in our bedrooms isn't recommended anyway; their blue-spectrum screen light is going to inhibit the production of melatonin and throw off circadian rhythm. That's why I choose to read before sleep.

What do you think I have been reading lately? Another heartbreaking topic, ironically. A book written by David Nott, a Welsh vascular surgeon who has worked voluntarily for twenty-five years in disaster and war zone. He ended up with deafness after a bomb blast near the hospital in Aleppo and post-traumatic stress disorder from the humanitarian work intermingled with inhumane scenes. His book War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line is basically a story of love which, to quote from David Nott, "isn't always tidy, and isn't always easy."

But first, a story.

One day, David Nott volunteered in Gaza where blast injuries were as common as pneumonia in our emergency room. He came across a girl who looked about seven years old, lying in the corner with extreme pallor and thread radial pulse. David Nott removed the blanket circumspectly and found a fragmentation wound to the girl's left arm without radial pulse. If you thought it was the worst scene you should think again. Alas, it wasn't simply arterial injury from the blast injury; her small bowel was hanging outside her body.

It's almost every doctor's definition of major trauma. David Nott knew very well the girl couldn't wait; her chance of survival dwindled with each passing second. He stared at the girl, mouth agape, and made a quick decision to scrub up. No sooner had the girl been put to sleep by anaesthetist than the door of the operating theatre flew open. It was the hospital security manager. "We've got intel that says the hospital's going to be attacked by shelling in five minutes. Everyone out."

The scrub nurse panicked. The security manager began shouting. "You have to go! Now! Right now!"

David Nott looked at the girl's blood pressure monitor, which read around 60 systolic. He knew he himself might die if he stayed. At the same time, he knew the girl would definitely die (in minutes, not hours) if he left. Leaving the girl alone on the operation table meant that she would die. He turned to the anaesthetist and said, "You can go, you don't need to stay."

"Are you staying?"

"I'm staying."

"Then I'll stay with you."

The story went that only two of them stayed behind to continue the abdomen surgery and radial artery repair, when all other medical and nursing staff were evacuated. The scrub nurse had left a lot of unopened swabs for David Nott. That wasn't a very logical decision, but David Nott could not bear to see another injured child die. The girl did survive miraculously, and so did the altruistic doctor.

David Nott didn't simply save the victims of the war. He saved the life of anyone in need. Once he had to operate on a Taliban fighter who'd been injured making improvised explosive devices. David Nott is often being asked how he can square his humanitarian work with saving the life of someone who might go on to making something that kills British soldiers or innocent civilians.

"I don't get to choose who I work on," David Nott says. "I can only try to intervene to save the life of the person in front of me who is in desperate need of help."

It's difficult to conceive of a doctor who teaches better than Hippocrates. But David Nott does.

Cave

A bit off the beaten track, Waipu Caves get fewer visitors than Waitomo Caves in New Zealand. Both are large caves with glowworms and limestone formations, but we don't expect guided boat tours past the stalactites and stalagmites in Waipu.

We found the hard way to Waipu Caves with our daughter today, as the path got darker and darker. We felt something slippery underneath our feet, a flash of fear that quickly turned to tension. My daughter hesitated when we suggested taking off shoes to delve the depths, panicking.

Like a reflex, my daughter shut her mouth and stopped moving. The creepy walk scared the crap out of her, the way one feels trying to smuggle hard currency across the border. She had good reason to be afraid. "Can we go back?" my daughter murmured. Cave walk was pretty darn wonky: black and wet. We paused regularly. 

"The destination is over there," said my wife, by way of encouragement, gesturing at a distant horizon. 

Ten minutes passed, and our eyes were adjusting more and more to the darkness, our feet to the skiddy mud and icy water. Bit by bit, we tiptoed down and were in complete darkness. It was then those luminescent tails of glowworms showed up like a Milky Way.

Seldom had we been so satisfied with every ounce of our efforts.

iNaturalist

We've been taught: a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. Everyone. That means any bird, butterfly, or even fern.

I have over the years loved to name the birds I saw on the road. To get a feel for what I might chance upon during my recent New Zealand trip, I brought Andrew Crowe's bird guide to get acquainted with species like tūī, takahe, pūkeko, and fantail.

Now, instead of looking up their names in a pocket-size guide, I was introduced to my new guide, iNaturalist.

The moment I heard from a like-minded travel buddy of mine about this free smartphone app supported by the National Geographic Society, I felt a connection to this digital crowd-sourced naturalist guide. iNaturalist, it turned out, to be the perfect companion to vacation hikes. All we need is a snapshot and a button click to submit the wildlife photo. And within minutes we will hear from the entire community, suggesting names followed by short descriptions of the wildlife.

It is that simple - and that powerful.

Time-Turner

Would you believe me if I told you that the first thing I did on my birthday this year was running?

Perhaps one reason for my determination to run is birthday cake celebration the night before my birthday, and anticipation of more cakes to follow. I ran fast because my daughter texted me the minute past midnight, asking to be the very first one to say happy birthday to me.

Of course, there are many other reasons for me to run. I have a hunch that my genes and stress since childbirth call for more exercise to get me back on the right direction. Since I was a low birth weight preterm baby nearly half a century ago, the "famine" environment might have increased my odds of developing obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Still the odds! Priming from early-life exposure to "famine" nutrition, and subsequent mismatch with overnutrition, can forebode a unhealthy body, or what we call "thrifty phenotype."

Fast forward to my current middle-age race against the clock. I know pretty well my physical strength should have peaked years ago. I am running to stalk degeneration, instead of trying to turn the clock back. All of which is to say that I may not be as successful as Hermione who managed to travel back in time (as what she did in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) by means of a charm she wears around her neck. I can't. But I can run faster than the clock, on a positive note.

Trophy

All parents (okay, almost all) go out of their way to expose their kids to certain experiences and to teach them the corresponding etiquette.

Soccer fans have their kids dressed in Manchester City or Liverpool jerseys watching Premier League matches. Video game gurus engage their kids with Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite adventures. Those interested in cookery use food as a teaching tool.

Here's what I am expert in: buy or check out a book from library to bring home. Tada! My daughter's face will then be totally buried in the book. Her mind will be so absorbed in the book so tight that she won't eat, sleep or pee. Ah, that is more rewarding than catching a huge bass.

The way a daughter loves reading is a bookworm daddy's trophy. When my daughter was hooked on Raina Telgemeier's new story book Guts the minute I brought it home, I knew I won another trophy tonight.

Elite

All parents yearn for their children to represent school in competition, an achievement worth uploading to social media platform. In fact, it might be tempting even to broadcast a live video to guarantee hundreds of "Like" on your post.

It is one thing to celebrate if your children get selected. But it is another thing altogether to consider how school teachers should choose the school team. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine took pride in his firsthand experience in school's choice of sending the best of the best candidate. The crème de la crème, end of story. Reputation first. Always.

Which brings me to a novel on my bedside table recently: Beartown. That's a story of junior ice hockey team. No one really knows where Beartown is. Not because it's nestled deep in the forest, but because it's poor. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semifinals, and everyone in the community pins hope on the juniors. Winning would mean everything to this small town. So much so that the sports team has decided to fire the coach Sune and replace him by someone who says just one word: "Win." The club needs that; the town demands that.

It's just that Sune isn't so sure that's all a hockey team should consist of: boys who never lose. Instead, Sune told his hockey players: "Some of you were born with talent, some weren't. Some of you are lucky and got everything for free, some of you got nothing. But remember, when you're out on the ice you're all equals. And there's one thing you need to know: desire always beats luck."

That sounds inspiring. And it is. One would be nuts to say no to Sune.

The novel, it turned out, was written by Fredrik Backman, a Swedish college dropout who was working as a forklift driver at a food warehouse when he wrote his first novel A Man Called Ove. He signed up for night and weekend shifts so he could write during the day. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Fredrik Backman, but not Sune, who stated "desire always beats luck."

Shorts

To run, all we need is a pair of good running shoes and shorts. Period.

As Peter Sagal said in The Incomplete Book of Running: If you don't have sneakers, just grab your most comfortable shoes, or go barefoot on dirt or sand. If you don't have shorts, get an old pair of jeans and cut off the legs. If anybody judges you wearing ratty clothes, one of the privileges and benefits of running is leaving people behind.

To those who pay careful attention to my first sentence, I sound a cautionary note: we need more than one running outfit. We can't have that many runs each week if we have only one pair of shorts, for example. To get around this, some runners - okay, many - okay, me - can wear running outfits more than once before washing. If I choose to be honest, I'd have to say that it's not uncommon for me to dig out my smelly running shorts from the laundry basket for my second run the next day.

I admit, sometimes I find my running speed ramped up by how stinky my outfits are, the way a cheetah energized by an antelope. The stinkier you're, the farther you prefer to go ahead of others.

Second Mountain

Not long ago I read a passage about falling into a valley. The valley can be a personal one or a societal one or both. It's a smash. All the way to the bottom.

But in case you thought it must be suffering that shatters everything at the very bottom, let me tell you the meaning of the valley, the lessons I'd learned from David Brooks after reading his new book The Second Mountain. Being in the valley lets us see deeper into ourselves, to move from self-centered to other-centred, to embark on a new journey to the second mountain.

These are precisely the words we need to remind ourselves today, when our city stumbles into the deepest valley ever.

Everyone struggles. Everyone sheds tears.

Of course, crying isn't always a solution. Or even an option. I think, more than anything, it helps to read the powerful book and learn from David Brooks, who has always mentioned the second mountain discovered by Viktor Frankl. Paraphrasing Frankl, Brooks writes that "everything can be taken from a man but one thing - the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given circumstances, to choose one's own way."

Tiger

You'll be forgiven if you've never heard of Téa Obreht. Her knack for writing began to be recognized in 2011 with her debut novel, The Tiger's Wife.

I had stumbled upon this book with Balkan history before my Croatian trip. I didn't have time to read it until my return from Croatia. My elder brother, who came back from the States to visit our family, couldn't hide his sly facial expression when he happened to see the novel's title.

"No, no, no," I lost no time in making myself clear before my wife became leery of me. "Now, listen. This has nothing to do with a tiger wife. It's about a tiger's wife, not a tiger wife."

No sooner had I finished Téa Obreht's tiger fable, than I heard about her most recent novel Inland from The New York Times Book Review this afternoon. That's her second novel after an eight-year wait.

Wait. My elder brother also came after an eight-year wait; his family last visited us in 2011. Well, if this has anything to do with clairvoyance, the chance is that my elder brother shall be back when the third novel of Téa Obreht is out.

Let's pray for more books to come from Téa Obreht.

Trogir

Flying by the seat of your pants, as advised by the Lonely Planet editor Don George, is a quintessential part of the traveller's act and art.

You can call it whatever you like. You can call it flexibility. You can call it no-matter-what mindset. Some might call it a secret sixth sense that you never know where the journey will take you - while others might go so far as to call it the eleventh hour.

Our recent trip to Croatia was the perfect example. Accommodation booked from the site Airbnb, to our chagrin, went south at the last minute. We found out that the lodging near Central Dalmatia wasn’t ready only on arrival.

Duh!

Disappointing, I know. I was not quite frowning, but certainly not smiling, my heart running at a gradually faster tempo.

Before darkness, we made up our mind and went to Trogir, a historic town on the central Adriatic coast. That turns out to be a wise choice. Trogir, in fact, is an Unesco World Heritage site, in recognition of its architectural and cultural importance.

Like so often in life, all it takes is a leap of faith. And a whole lot of trust in your seat-of-the-pants.

Plitvice

Open any Croatian travel guidebook and you'll see turquoise ribbon of lakes lined up in a maze of awe-inspiring waterfalls.

That's World-Heritage-listed Plitvice Lakes National Park.

To prepare for our family trip this summer, I'd decided to buy the newest edition of Lonely Planet Croatia. I then checked out few more from the public library: National Geographic Traveler Croatia, Insight Guides Croatia, Croatia Unpacked. And then the pocket guide by Rick Steves.

If there's just one activity you can't experience from reading, I'd put money on getting up-close views of the travertine formations, a porous sedimentary rock also known as tufa, that make up Plitvice's many waterfalls. Nobody shall miss this forested karstic terrain in Croatia, period. We headed to the trails exploring the lakes early in the morning - on two consecutive days.

The water is real clear for you to count every trout. And why is this so? For one thing, I was told, it comes directly from high-mountain runoff. Water around Plitvice is supersaturated with calcium carbonate and spills over the edges of the lake. For that reason, the water calcifies everything it touches, preventing the creation of mud. Another mineral, magnesium carbonate, keeps the water highly basic, preventing the growth of algae and other plant life.

The sight of Plitvice, by itself, is a good reason to visit Croatia. You will never be able to experience the breathtaking natural beauty simply from guidebooks.

Slovenia

It's hard to imagine running in countries with magical landscape. Add to the temptation of photographs, throw in a few Instagramable castles and wayside villages, and it's clear to see why we resist lacing and tying running shoes on the road.

During my summer vacation with family this week, I confirmed that Croatia and Slovenia's scenic credentials are impeccable. As a bonus to the trip, I picked the hour with less promising weather to give myself an excuse to sneak in a jog and put in serious miles. That means an excuse not to bring my camera. An excuse to go solo for a self-indulgent experience.

The running experience turned out to be as memorable as the one with my camera and great shots. When I'd finished my run, I loved the country more than I had.

Inspired

Be proud of who you are. Love yourself.

Right. That's what my nine-year-old reminds us. All embedded in nice handwritten notes.

Oh, and lest I forget.

Do your very best.

It's her summer holiday, and not ours. My daughter has much free time when we're at work. She designed a lovely box filled with those heart-warming notes.

It was such a joy to read and share quotes, and that's natural. We learn more from a simple sentence than a thesis. I happened to be reading Together is Better this evening. The quotes from this book never ceases to inspire me:

A boss has the title. A leader has the people.

When we are closed to ideas, what we hear is criticism. When we are open to criticism, what we get is advice.

A star wants to see himself rise to the top. A leader wants to see those around him become stars.

The mind can be convinced but the heart must be won.

When we tell people to do their jobs, we get workers. When we trust people to get the job done, we get leaders.

Faced with the inspiration from my daughter's treasure trove and that little book by Simon Sinek tonight, how could I be anything but grateful?

Van Gogh

What has struck me most in the renovation of the Hong Kong Museum of Art is that it has taken more than four years. And it sounds as if it will take forever.

So when we heard about local exhibitions like Affordable Art Fair and Van Gogh Alive, we were more than a little excited. It shouldn't surprise us that children's creativity is best unleashed outside classroom.

But wait, as our experience tells us, there's more. Free drawing and painting. Plenty of paper and sketch books. This is all happening at my home, and my wife told me lately that we have had enough sketch books. I have bought too many of them, I'm afraid.

Art

I came home late after a gathering with my colleagues, and was just enough to have dinner with my family. That's important.

Of course it is. Family dinner is one of the most treasured moments for us. We then talked about the best activity of the day. Jasmine answered without thinking, "Painting with mum this afternoon."

It was then I noticed two new paintings in our living room, one oil painting, and another watercolour.

Every child is an artist, Picasso reminds us. "The problem," he observed, "is how to remain an artist when we grow up." Oh, sure, many of us have lost our naturally born artistic flair. But my wife hasn't. She remains to be an amazing model whom my daughter can learn from and look up to.

Break

Our city has been turned upside down over the last week, the way a bird's nest was ransacked by black vultures. A city with nothing, with everything.

Calloused by grief, I had a break today. A day off.

I thought it was time to call a truce. Time for taking a short break.

In no time, I did few things I seldom got chance to do on a Friday.  After visiting the new office of my wife, I made a beeline for the country park. As I walked along the nature trail, I forgot the newspaper headline and simply followed the butterflies. Which brings me to a large cross-sectional study published yesterday in Science Reports, concluding an association between spending 120 minutes a week in nature with better health and higher life satisfaction.

On my way back to my daughter's school, I thought of what David Attenborough had said: I hope the beauty that I saw and everything in the nature are not owned by me, but they can last long, and can be seen by the next generation.

This is something I can't be so sure. Not any more.

Big O

I read a wonderful passage in the Sunday Morning Post about words of advice from American author Shel Silverstein: the best relationships do not complete us but let us grow and become more fully ourselves.

My daughter is a big fan of Shel Silverstein, the celebrated author of The Missing Piece Meets the Big O.

This is how I've arrived at new understanding of the short story. Think of the main character "Missing Piece" in the way we see a slice of pizza. This lonely little wedge feels a deep sense of readiness for his long-awaited love. He longs for a "perfect partner" to make it a romantic and complete circle.

But, as we all know, love doesn't arrive just because we want it to. The Missing Piece wakes up one morning after another, meeting one shape after another, none of which matching his. Not a right fit.

One fine day, the Missing Piece wanders over to meet a shape that introduces itself as the Big O. The Missing Piece falls head over heels for the Big O, very much keen to roll with it. In lieu of saying "I do," the Big O tells the Missing Piece to roll by himself.

"By myself? A missing piece cannot roll by itself"

"Have you ever tried?" asked the Big O.

The more the Missing Piece thinks about it, the more he thinks of the impasse. An odd shape isn't designed for rolling, after all. The Big O keeps encouraging and tries saying those sharp corners will eventually wear off once the Missing Piece starts rolling.

At first much of the rolling sounds like flopping forward over and over. Then the Missing Piece starts to notice a change in shape, with the sharp edges wearing off.

With time, the Missing Piece becomes a well-rounded circle rolling perfectly, soon joined by the Big O. The pair roll alongside each other thereafter.

Which brings back the moral of Silverstein's story: true love isn't about completing each other but complementing and nurturing each other independently to become the best couple.

Quite right.

Kindness

We all know Florence Nightingale. Not many of us know Christie Watson, though. Not until I've read The Language of Kindness.

Her book recounts the story of her life as a nurse. And stories about her patients. Some of her stories will make your heart sing, but others will make you cringe. Christie retold her nursing career after 20 years in NHS hospitals. In a confessional style. Even it's often the junior nurses who tend to feel the most, as Christie herself admitted, she remains to own a tender heart after developing the senior level of thick skin.

Let me illustrate. I feel in awe of Christie Watson when she brought us a wondrous portrait of fourteen-year-old Aaron confined to bed, oxygen tubes inserted into his lungs stuffed by thick mucus of cystic fibrosis. Christie didn't tell Aaron's mum that Aaron would be fine. She'd never tell any relative that: she has learned her lesson. Because none of us really knows.

Christie simply searched inside herself for comforting words, helping the tired boy get ready for a heart-lung transplant. Christie was shattered by the experience of waiting for organ donation. When they were waiting, each second became a minute, each minute an hour. Days became weeks and months and years. When Aaron was waiting, time became shorter; he was getting nearer to the mortuary. A count down.

Christie rubbed cocoa butter onto Aaron’s dry knees, took away his Game Boy and swore to guard it with her life.

The heartbreaking coda came after Aaron woke up from the heart-lung transplant and recovered, enjoying much strawberry ice-cream as he wanted. Christie helped Aaron write a difficult letter to the mother of the boy who gave him his heart. The lines make us laugh: "Did your son like strawberry ice-cream?" And cry: "It's not fair that your son died so I can live. I absolutely promise I will never forget him."

Race

If you want to soak up the summer MacLehose Trail scenery on foot, but are not quite up to the ultra endurance trail race, the Midsummer Race 1 is perfect, or so I was told.

Undulating but never steep, the 14km route near Shing Mun Reservoir takes in all sorts of terrain. It takes a bit of nerve, considering the season of this event when temperatures are hitting 34 degrees Celsius. It doesn't matter if you are elite or beginner - you're supposed to bring at least 1.5 litres of water.  

To begin with, I didn't read the instruction on racing gear carefully and brought next to nothing. A mobile phone, and that's all. I didn't bring water at all. Sniff. Sniff. To say that it's an oversight was an understatement. Seriously, one can simply lose marbles with dehydration, causing a rise in temperature until one’s brain is cooking on the inside.

Before long, I realized the trail race was more difficult than I'd imagined. That's a mix of concrete and trail. Muddy too. Racing against the clock is no easy feat. Being distracted could turn me into a Humpty Dumpty off the cliff in the blink of an eye. Instead of aiming for a personal best record, I told myself, I should aim for completing the race in one piece.

And I did. Indeed, so addled was I that I forgot to press the stopwatch the instant I crossed the finish line.

All in all this was a magical experience, of a kind I had never known before. 

Wellness

Mention the term corporate culture, and big cerebral concepts such as shared mission will come to mind. True, cognitive culture sets the tone for the team to thrive.

Imagine you're a manager who seeks to construct the best workplace, and your organization charter is awash in ideas for bringing in purpose and values. But I argued otherwise during our corporate's annual forum today.

So far we have advocated too much on those big things - mission, vision, blah, blah, blah -  but we somehow forget the most basic human needs. Think about the hierarchy of needs model published by the psychologist Abraham Maslow. At its most bottom of the pyramid, there are physiological needs such as sleeping and eating, and security. They're far more important than the top aspiration like self-actualization. Anyone noble desires for transcendence, you might think. Think again.

In the real world, it's next to impossible to mingle our aspirations with our needs. The things we desire the most are the things we need the least.

What my hardworking doctor colleagues need the most, as a matter of fact, is time for bathroom visit, a break for lunch, or a cup of coffee.

Who won't?

Heaven

Last week, the news of rebooting pig brains four hours after the animals have been killed was not actually a shock. That was an earthquake.

Research findings published in Nature challenged the dogma that large mammalian brains are irreversibly damaged after cessation of blood circulation. Scientists had connected 32 pig brains to an artificial perfusion system after killing the pigs, removing the brains from the skulls. Contrary to those who expected the brain to be stone dead - and believe it or not - they showed restoration of circulation to brains' blood vessels and cellular functions.

Unsettling as it is, it may be hard to resist the notion that dead brains are now being brought back to "life."

Honestly, I'm much more comfortable with reading Mitch Albom's The Next Person You Meet in Heaven. That's a fiction I'd borrowed from public library last week, fifteen years after reading the original story The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Another fable full of lessons and hope. People died in the story but they set us at ease. Annie, a lady whose childhood was riddled with mistakes, bully and insecurity, donated one of her lungs to her beloved husband and was soon whisked to heaven. When she met five people in heaven, she was taught something she didn't realise while alive. Her journey in heaven was an afterlife lesson we wished we have had learned on earth.

I would much like to learn the rules of life than to rule the life. That's pretty sure.

Travel

From nature trails and mountain walk to tree-top zip-slide, there's no better option for a family holiday.

With careful research and thorough planning, independent family travel is the best bet for freedom and flexibility. Why not? We know our kids the best and are therefore most capable of finding the magic formula.

Believe me, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much fun as simply compiling a wish list with family and making the dream come true. We did that when our family explored Hiroshima-ken this week. Three of us were relaxed and in good spirits. We always are when we travel.

When our flight left Hiroshima this afternoon, we were already counting the days until next trip.

Cycling

Nothing beats the freedom of getting behind the handlebars, whistling, pedaling on the open road. Well, nothing except pairing that adventure with the perfect scenic road.

A highlight of our recent Hiroshima trip is an amazing cycling experience along the Setouchi Shimanami Kaidō, a route featured by CNN as one of the top seven cycling spots in the world.

Not only does the route have instant "wow" factor, courtesy of its long suspension bridge across stunning coastline view, but it also boasts a bewildering range of stops, through towns and villages, past citrus groves and hitting a few long, thigh-burning inclines.

Think about the feat of cycling with a nine-year-old and you'll soon be humming tunes from the Disney song "How Far I'll Go" from the film Moana.

Every turn I take
Every trail I track
Every path I make
Every road leads back to the place I know
Where I cannot go
Where I long to be.

Hiroshima

Lots of places claim to be perfect for kids - and Japan is no exception.

What about Hiroshima?

Go on, admit it. The name is much more likely to ring the bell of an atomic bomb attack than your bucket list with children.

It’s not surprising that we haven’t picked this destination again since my last visit (with my wife then) twelve years ago.

Children, however, grow up fast and you'll never find a better opportunity to enrich their lives and souls than heading to a city with special story behind.

To us, the visit of Hiroshima is more than a prelude to an inland hiking and biking holiday. It’s an inspiring history lesson.

Trip

Bulbit. Bulbit. The sound was coming from the forest on Victoria Peak.

It's a cheerful song from red-whiskered bulbul.

I was up there with my wife after skiving off work today. A peaceful and leisure walk on a Wednesday afternoon.

We've been there dozens of times before. The oh-so-picturesque footpath and the songbirds were all too familiar. The main difference from our usual hikes was that we were not bringing our daughter this time.

Want to hear the reason Jasmine wasn't with us? She has joined her school's cultural study tour to Zhuhai, China.

And to us, the entirety of my daughter's tour feels like an epic adventure to faraway lands like Kilimanjaro. Part of me was relieved the moment had finally arrived: I wanted my daughter to be independent and take care of her valise. Another part could think of nothing worse: I didn't know if she could sleep well and get up by her alarm in the morning, and the blahs.

Thankfully, Zhuhai is a matter of two hours from our hometown. All she needs is self-confidence; I should not worry. Well, rationality is one thing, parental anxiety quite another.

Recharge

Screen time statistics on our iPhone is not for monitoring kids. It's more for us. That's the reality of it. Let's not pretend otherwise. Many of us are too attached to our phones.

Being awake means that I am struggling to deal with the message notification alerts or sounds. For those coming from pharmacist or nurses, I really have to respond right away because the sounds come from my hospital phone. For those alerts from other sources like WhatsApp or corporate mobile application, I try my best to take a look. But if I don't have time, I just ignore them and move on. The problem is that I could have missed important messages. Whether we like it or not, we can't ignore the messages for too long.

We all need down time. It won't be easy, but we need it.

So we can be free.

So we can be happy.

So we can go on living a normal life.

Another term for this recharging retreat is the "restorative niche." A restorative niche is basically a space and time in which we are allowed to shut out the noise and chaos of the world, to be alone. It can be a bedroom. A nook in the library. Or even a mental space. Mine is the one-hour run from my workplace to home in the evening. Ever since I picked up this habit, I'd taught myself to ignore my iPhone when I run. I'd tried to remember that looking at the screen serves no purpose except slowing down my pace. With time, I knew that distraction-free run is a healing for the chaos. A restorative niche.

Grief

Tonight, I left in the middle of my senior's retirement dinner. That, it hardly needs saying, is not what I usually do. I did so because of my daughter's loss of her pet.

Our hamster died this evening.

Our family had talked about the short life span of hamster. One day she would have to leave us. We knew it. But even the fate is somewhat expected, it turned out that mourning was more difficult than I'd have expected. When my daughter left a sobbing voice message on my phone, I knew I should stay with her during such awful moment. We mourned the very fact that our hamster can die. We mourned about her death that early and that suddenly, before we had chance to buy and refill her favorite treat of sunflower seeds.

I remember reading a research on children losing a pet between the age of 6 and 13. Even years after the pet's death, according to the study, some school-age children still described their loss as "the worst day of their lives." In many ways, this is very true. If you are a little disturbed by this, I am with you. For better or worse (okay, clearly worse now that she died), the bonding with our hamster has wired our brains to treat her as a family member. No one could pretend that losing a hamster is anywhere near as losing a toy.

We saw so clearly the need for a goodbye ritual. That helps. She wrote text messages to her friends, the way people announce the death of a family member. After writing a poem and a letter, Jasmine brought hand shovels to dig a grave with us. We held a goodbye funeral. In some sense, we are, all of us, in the end, social animals not supposed to bottle up the emotional pain.

Amen.

Choice

I am sure there are days when you come home late, when everyone is asleep. There is no easy way around this, aside from thinking of another occasion to reconnect. Rightly so: it isn’t easy.

Whew. Looking back, I find it hard to believe I had the first week of this month without a single chance to have dinner with family.

You read that right. I wasn’t able to go home for dinner for one whole week.

I felt my guilt. The hectic week before has taught me to be more sensitive to the personal life and family life. I’ve promised myself: There isn’t an excuse to leave my family without good reason. In turn, I’ve opted to skip a transplant infectious disease conference today. I don’t think it’s too bad a choice when I could spend a weekend afternoon outdoor with my wife and daughter. I just knew that I'd found out something more important than sitting in a lecture hall.

Revived

No matter how much I grow to love running, there are times when it's hard to keep running. The reason I skipped running for one whole month was that I'd been recovering from a knee injury.

As most runners know, such a break is, in effect, wrestling with addicts' withdrawal from coming off drugs or alcohol. Shakiness. Emptiness. Crankiness.

After doggedly following the ups and downs of a professional examination for the Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians this week, I felt like I should learn to get back up after falling down. That's what I told the examination candidates. Somehow, it had never occurred to me that I should more or less follow the same advice. I checked my kneecap, trying to figure out how much the discomfort resulted from twisting injury and how much from ice burns. Pray tell me - not too loudly please - I'm not the only dimwit who burns his own skin after applying ice pack to the knee.

The rain was not too heavy and should get me ready to run for 10 km, I thought. I braced myself for the challenge once I put on my running shoes. Blood rushed to my brain; I felt an animating surge of adrenaline, of picking up my speed, of running at my lactate threshold. It was in this state of mind that I finished my run with shoes all soaked and myself drenched by the rain. And, yes, rejuvenated.

Conversations

Finding the right way to communicate is not easy. If it were, we'd all live in a better world every minute of every day.

Many people don't know how communication works. Others will find the experience uncomfortable. A few will just roll their eyes. When you, like most of us, are boneheads in communication, settle for an easy-to-follow guidebook. I happened to come across The Communication Book written by Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäpper. It's a fast read, and consists of 44 important communication theories.

One important take-away lesson for me is the mantra: "Listen, don't talk; it's not about you."

When was the last time you hear from an acquaintance who has lost a family member? Be careful. Don't start talking about the time you lost a family member. This means you should resist talking about yourselves. You're trying to draw parallel and show that you understood how your friend feels, I know. In reality, as the radio broadcaster Celeste Headlee put it in a TED Talk, it's not the same. It's never the same. Don't share your own grief stories and personal anecdotes.

Remember, it's not about you.

Sprain

Injury during ski does happen, and I had mine in Hokkaido.

After buying an all-mountain pass, an electronic tag gave me access to all chairlifts and gondolas. I knew my standard pretty well and confined myself to beginners' terrain. That's what green circle ski slope rating symbol stands for. A green trail is de rigueur for those in search of adventure but not too thrilling one. Strange though it might seem, I still sprained the medial collateral ligament in my left knee on a green slope.

I fell. A bad fall. Gratefully, I didn't hear a pop sound, and still could stand up wobbly. Maybe I didn't tear my ligament. Yet.

I pressed on my left knee and tested the movement, seized with a sudden and foreboding dread so immense, so tense, that I could almost feel the terror pulsing inside me.

"Can I run again?" I stared at my knee, mouth agape. That's for me to worry about.

Blizzard

On the second day of our ski trip in Hokkaido, we were hit by a massive snow storm bringing gusts of wind up and plunging temperatures down. All the way below minus twenty degrees.

I was skiing on beginner terrain with my daughter. We passed each other. Our eyes met for a half second. Maybe less. Then we accelerated, turned right and left, concentrating on finding the way downslope. We seemed lost, dazed, as if we relied more on memory than vision to locate the path. Alas, only the most intrepid skier, if not Yeti, would dare to continue in such cluttered condition.

Without hesitating, we cut short the mountain activity. The afternoon was better spent indoor, I thought. Perhaps a book to read with a cup of coffee. In another moment, I was brewing coffee.

Bringing with me a novel has always been my travel plan. This time, by coincidence, I had All the Light We Cannot See. This novel's title more or less sums up my experience with the snow storm.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

We hear story after story of the extraordinary dreams which came true and flourished. Not too many stories get passed along, though. Not that great stories can't pass down from generation to generation, most of them can, but they never stick inside our heads as we get old.

Think Mary Poppins, a classic and evergreen story. We all remember the two cheerful children, Michael and his sister Jane. Who won't? Their names bring to mind supercalifragilisticexpialidocious flying adventure with a magical nanny and a chimney sweep. They were jolly. Well, up to a point.

That's what I found out when I brought my daughter to watch the sequel movie Mary Poppins Returns this morning. The two of them had grown up, and were preoccupied by all those no-nonsense adult business, from plumbing leaks to the bank loan. We all sensed how their appearances had changed. In which all their humor had been handed in and vanished.

Under the watchful eye of the Great Slump, Michael and Jane exchanged surprised looks when they heard the mantra "Everything is possible - even the impossible." They could no longer believe in that.

But they were wrong.

In the same way we needed to grow up when we were children, now that we are adults we need to grow down. If growing up means getting mature, growing down is about learning again to become more open, curious and creative.

Questioner

I'm not a huge believer in the value of personality typing. Is it possible, I wonder, to define people by the Myers-Briggs typology? 

We are tempted to have a neat categorization. That's one good reason supporting the axiom that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don't.

Whatever group you are in, chances are pretty good that you, like me, will thoroughly enjoy reading The Four Tendencies by the bestselling self-help author Gretchen Rubin. I did. This book is about classifying people into four Tendencies: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. What Gretchen means by this is that any person can be classified by his or her response to outer expectations and inner expectations.

If you'd like to know the distinctions among the Tendencies, think about the lightbulb jokes that capture the framework.

How do you get an Upholder to change a lightbulb?
Answer: He's already changed it. (Upholder responds readily to both outer and inner expectations.)

How do you get a Questioner to change a lightbulb?
Answer: Why do we need that lightbulb anyway? (Questioner questions all expectations and responds to an expectation only if he believes it's justified.)

How do you get an Obliger to change a lightbulb?
Answer: Ask him to change it. (Obliger responds readily to outer expectations but struggles to meet inner ones.)

How do you get a Rebel to change a lightbulb?
Answer: Do it yourself. (Rebel resists all expectations, outer and inner alike.)

After I took the quiz to test my Tendency, I felt a sudden jolt. Whew. Looking back, I realize that I've been a Questioner. Questioners often refuse to follow an accepted practice. That's me. I meet an expectation only if I endorse it as efficient and reasonable in the first place. For instance, my family keeps reminding me to have breakfast, but I didn't think that's necessary.

I question even this very basic rule. "Do I have to have breakfast? Why shouldn't I be allowed to skip that?"

It may seem that I’m stubborn, but this is not the case. I am simply a Questioner who requires solid justifications. After exhaustive research, I'd been recently convinced the health value of breakfast. Since then, I have been having regular breakfast. Every morning.

Exercise

Sometimes, we want a game that doesn't have to be taken too seriously. Sometimes, there is nothing quite as satisfying as having fun than winning.

It's exactly what our family did this Friday night. Three days ago, my wife bought a basketball. What better time to start exercising? I reminded myself to return home earlier, in order to head for the sports ground soon after dinner.

We discovered that the basketball field was too crowded to practice shooting. Our enthusiasm to exercise didn't slip, as we had plenty tips to get pumped to workout. We tried rope skipping exercise, basketball drills like air passes and bounce passes. Then jogging time around the running track. Or planking exercise. As I took part in what seemed like an athletics meet, I could not help but count my endorphins surge.

We stayed till eleven and, sadly, the basketball field remained occupied by die-hard basketball buffs. The upside was, by the time we had finished our exercises that late, most kids had gone home, leaving the adjacent playground all to my daughter.

"Yeah."

Chairs

During this time of the year, we find ourselves going through the ritual of spring cleaning. Some of us wish to get our houses in shape for visits. Or simply a matter of embracing a new year with fresh beginning.

Chances are you'll clean out the old to make room for the new furniture, new calendar, new wardrobe collection, and new you.

And, to this end, I am grateful to have four dining chairs delivered from abroad last week - after what seemed like an eternity. We placed our order four months ago. Much as I love the new furniture, I must say that I love the timing of new chairs' arrival more. Timing wasn't everything. But it was a big thing.

All of which is not to say that I like the way we have new chairs at the beginning of a new year. The best part, it turned out, is buying the new chairs to replace worn-out ones now that my daughter is old enough to help me assemble them. Unpacking and reading the instruction with my daughter are simply the formula for family joy, second only to that of assembling new chairs together. We won't forget the laughter at my making mistakes - not too loudly please - and then the sense of satisfaction after putting the last pieces in place.

Balance

It's now definitely one of our favourite times of the year to make a fresh resolution. But there comes a question we're never quite prepared for - how to pick the right resolution.

While we wish it were otherwise, most of us don't know what yardstick to measure a successful life. One might a specific and measurable goal. A number. Focus on a number and make the number go up (say, money), or down (think body weight). That sounds simple and neat. I am not alone in this view. I bet you do, too.

After reading Eric Barker's book Barking Up the Wrong Tree, I felt as if my view has changed. Eric Barker added two interesting twists. First, we should avoid using a "collapsing strategy" - collapsing everything into one barometer of whether or not our life is on track. Take what happens to a guy who throws everything into one bucket, such as making more money. The more often we make money and the more money we make, the more happy we will be. That pretty much sounds logical. Well, not necessarily. We might then miss out another area of life, like the relationships with our family.

The second overarching message from Eric Barker on setting goal is to watch out the pitfall of so-called "sequencing strategy." An example of sequencing is First I'll work a job I hate and make a lot of money and then I'll have a family and then I'll do what I want and be happy. Unfortunately, as Eric Barker pointed out, life is just never that clear-cut. Try as you might, you can't sequence relationships. By the time problems arise in the relationships, it is too late. Sorry.

Pleasure

Everyone finds that vacation offers a quantum leap in happiness.

Taking a two-week vacation, according to a German study of teachers, is an ideal way of handling stress at workplace; it increased work engagement and decreased burnout for up to a month. I know how it feels: the vacation makes you feel like Popeye after a can of spinach.

But hear me out. The truth is, we can't justify overwork simply because we have had a trip. The researchers found that too much stress after coming back to work make the effects last less than a month. That's not to say that we shouldn't take vacation. But be under no illusions - when we carve out time now and then for many short breaks, the effect is much better than an once-in-a-blue-moon long vacation. Ask enough people how they fare in the search for happiness and you'll appreciate the theory of hedonic treadmill: our general tendency to return to a set level of happiness despite life's ups and downs.

And I have been thinking about a more strategic schedule in setting aside time in small steps. Yes, that means I don't need too many long vacations; I should preserve time for short breaks. On the first day of the year, for example, our family's chemistry for happiness is to have a bike ride and then a short run. That simple formula turns out to be the biggest contentment.